So I've been wanting to get another collaboration going on. I've had an Idea and now just need to see if others are willing to give it a try.The story goes like this:

After a colony goes dark, a group of soldiers is sent to the planet to investigate, instead of the earth-like conditions the planet was supposed to be, they find it covered in ice, the colony deserted and no trace of survivors. The soldiers are left stranded for six months until their reinforcement arrives trying to survive and discover what happened.

Rather than having each author assume one character, writers would be free to write chapters from the perspective of any crew member; From the officers to the lowly private, deckhand or engineer.

The Ship would have around a hundred crew members. 30 Ship hands and a platoon of 70 marines. All commissioned by the Earth Directive Expedition Force for their mission and sent aboard the EFS Blue Hornet to the planet that had lost it's FTL communications seven months prior.

The dangers on the planet would be:

1) Environment: at -40 Celsius with a thick carpet of snow and ice obscuring the features the environment is lethal without survival equipment.

2) Xenos IE Aliens: The planet's subterranean areas is inhabited by a crustacean-like species of aggressive predators that come out only during winter. Although looking primitive, aliens would be fairly intelligent, able to use tactics, lay trap and understand biology enough to use biological weapons.

3) Reapers: Some of the colonist didn't just disappear, they came back, changed and stalking dome of the colony, they are super strong, fast and resistant. (Think 28 days later zombies on steroid)

One of the important piece of technology would be Cortical Stacks. No longer are humans held back by death. The stack is a small implant embedded in the spine that records memories and the person's personality to be revived at a later date. While this would make the characters technically immortal, they are left without bodies be transferred to as they are only a scouting mission.

This would also provide the vehicle for the story: Only characters with recoverable stacks would be POV characters (Which requires nothing but a knife and some elbow grease)

The technology would be somewhat grounded: No artificial gravity, force fields or supernatural elements.

Soldiers (And occasional crew members) would need to wear exo-suit, an armored environmentally sealed carapace while venturing outside or risk dying of exposure, breech of which would be catastrophic. The ship would be equipped with a nanobot assembly system, allowing equipment to be fabricated as long as raw material is provided.

Weapons would be mostly Ballisitc; Rifles and heavy machine guns as well as some energy weaponry such as plasma bolters to serve as heavy weapons.

Background:Karida was an army brat through and through; By the time she reached adulthood, she'd seen most of the galaxy and planets inhabited by humans. It wasn't an easy life, moving around all the time, making friends only to lose them next deployment. Rather than stop socializing, this made her protective of her friends and intent on enjoying what brief time she'd had them.

When she was old enough, she joined the military academy, her sole act of parental rebellion was to join the Marine rather than the Navy. Over the next half-century, she would partake in many skirmishes against rebels, criminal cartels and pirates until being promoted to Captain.

Karida is a caring leader and acts overly protective of those in her charge. She is trained as a field medic and also acts as Grenadier within her fireteam.

@GardeniasCastle Yes but it would mean having someone else give up their body for it. (An option for criminal punishment.) The ship being only intended to scout the planet (Which had no aggressive lifeforms bigger than a cat) doesn't have a supply of spare bodies, they didn,t think it warranted a real combat force

1) Spacers: They were raised in stations or on ships. A Spacer would probably be from a family of specialist, engineers, military or sometimes solo traders.2) Earthlings: They were raised in the mega-cities of earth, due to overpopulation, earth is a hellhole, with large slums and heavy policing. Resulting in many joining the army or corporations to get off.3) Colonists: Those lucky (Or unlucky) enough to live off planet often live hard lives, colonizing often less than hospitable environment is tricky. Most characters would probably be second or third generation colonists wanting to make it off world.

Background: Parents CEOs of a powerful company. Constance, was always made fun of by older brother for being horribel in business so she joined medical college where she finished in record time, wasn't liked in med school. First time out in space, recruited by Karida for her skills.

As a quick intervention drop ship, the Blue Hornet was sent to Planet Eos III to scout out the loss of the planet's FTL communication. The ship was created to enter atmosphere but is unable to leave it under it's own power, requiring boosters.

The ship contains living quarters (Which requires hot bunking at max occupancy), a mess hall, cargo hold, med bay, brig, cryogenic suspension hall, an armory, a briefing room and a bridge. During the travel Marines are put under suspended animation while the ship's crew continues to maintain the ship. Personal quarters are reserved for Commissioned officers and the ship's doctor and Chaplain.

The ship posses several vehicle; three all-terrain APC, a Light Tank, a half-dozen ATV and inflatable ships to assist the trops.

You seem to have a good handle on things and I'm always glad to see sci fi (particularly mil) on protag. Unfortunately, a project of my own is consuming most of my creative energy, so I won't be able to join in on the writing. Should you need technical support (seems a bit unlikely at this point, honestly), I'd be glad to try to help.

Posting is First person past tense, any POV can be used, not just your main character. You can do a scene from someone else,s character but ask them first. Order is more or less free for all, post as you want to, but you can call dibs if you want next chapter, you have 24 hours to deliver after that. You can't dibs after you just wrote a chapter.

Is a chapter limited to 1 page? Or will we be able to write 2 pages? Also I am a tad confused, will we be writing from the perspective of lost characters? (Meaning their POV is from the Cortical Stacks?) That is what I was assuming, but you know what happens when we assume :P

@ConnorHart The story and what happen is open ended, they could all die and this would be the stack's record of the event or some of them would be still alive. The perspective is from any character. (The cortical stack is mostly an excuse to be able to have first person narrative with dead characters)

You can write as long and as often as you want. Just don't call dibs on next chapter too often.

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